How does ROUNDMAP™ relate to Growth Hacking?
“Be undeniably good. No marketing effort or social media buzzword can be a substitute for that.”
–Anthony Volodkin, founder, Hype Maching
Definitions
Wikipedia: “Growth Hacking is a relatively new focus within the field of marketing focused on a company’s growth. It is both referred to as a process as a set of cross-disciplinary skills. The goal is to rapidly test ideas that can improve the customer journey, and replicate and scale the ideas that work, and modify or abandon the ones that don’t before investing a lot of resources.”
Optinmonster: “A growth hacker is someone who uses creative, low-cost strategies to help businesses acquire and retain customers. Sometimes growth hackers are also called growth marketers, but growth hackers are not simply marketers. Anyone involved in a product or service, including product managers and engineers, can be a growth hacker.”
Growth hackers tend to be obsessive, curious, and analytical:
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- Growth hackers focus on strategies related to growing the business.
- They hypothesize, prioritize and test innovative growth strategies.
- They analyze and often test to see what’s working.
The ideal growth hacker knows how to set growth priorities, identify channels for customer acquisition, measure success, and scale growth.
Pirate Funnel
Many Growth Hackers use Dave McClure’s so-called Pirate Funnel:
Not a funnel
First of all, we oppose the idea of driving customers/consumers into a funnel as if they were cattle, ready to be ‘slaughtered.’ It is disrespectful to animals and humans alike. We’re vegans for a reason.
Purchase not the end
While traditional ‘funnels’ only described the customer development process from Acquisition to the Moment of Purchase, it is a good thing that Growth Marketing now includes Referrals.
Nonetheless, that’s hardly a customer 360-approach, as it ignores almost everything between the Moment of Purchase and the Moment of Referral.
Growth Hacking is, therefore, about ‘growth’ at scale and at speed, and not about growing customer lifetime value from forging strong customer relationships and increasing customer value.
Cross-functional
ROUNDMAP™ Customer Roundtable Blueprint, on the other hand, offers a genuine 360-degree view of all customer interaction. It considers every touchpoint throughout the entire customer lifecycle, from Marketing, Sales, Delivery, to (Customer) Success. Thereby making the ROUNDMAP truly cross-functional. Growth Marketing isn’t, by any standard.
Our blueprint perceives the customer lifecycle from two viewpoints: from the brand and the customer’s perspective. When brand intent and customer intent become entangled or truly engaged, that’s where the magic happens.
The Customer Roundtable Blueprint aims to build customer relationships over the long run by inspiring brands to focus on customer value and design great customer experiences while meeting or even exceeding customer expectations. Advocacy (referrals) is as important in the lifecycle as any touchpoint.
Growth is not a hack.
While digital marketing offers many opportunities to reach out to a large audience cheaply and quickly, the reality is that most online purchases are made without much consideration, leading to fleeting relationships with customers.
A Gartner survey of more than 1,100 B2B customers in December 2020 showed that customers struggle to distinguish supplier offerings from one another through digital alone. In fact, 64% of surveyed customers cannot tell the difference between one B2B brand’s digital experience and another’s.
Sustaining growth does not come from so-called growth hacks or referrals. It comes from genuinely satisfied customers, that have come to assign real meaning to the brand or believe that the brand/product will help them achieve their goals in the future.
Growth Hacking should, therefore, be called Revenue Hacking, as it focuses on gaining more revenue rather than help the business to grow.
We believe the Growth Imperative should involve much more than just economic growth (maximizing profit):
- Gaining or maintaining market share;
- Attracting and retaining top talent;
- Boosting innovation and efficiency;
- Increasing customer value (or stakeholder value);
- Extending key partner relationships;
- Eliminating corporate tradeoffs;
- And finally, driving company value (or shareholder value).
Many have found that “a ‘growth for growth’s sake’ mindset is both non-strategic and potentially harmful to the firm.”
Conclusion
ROUNDMAP focuses on the sustaining aspects of sustainable Growth, while Growth Hacking merely touches on ‘gaining market share’, as cheaply and quickly as possible.
